Category: Cocktails

Jaffa, the oldest neighborhood of Tel-Aviv, has inspired Los Angeles’ new modern Israeli restaurant Jaffa. Located on West 3rd Street in West Hollywood, Jaffa LA is a bright space that includes stone walls and reclaimed wood, serving up modern Israeli cuisine.

Chef Anne Conness, who’s nuevo rancho cuisine I first tried at her El Segundo restaurant Sausal, fell in love with the cuisine of Israel after traveling there with business partner Nancy Vrankovic. At Jaffa LA, Chef Conness has taken the modern Israeli cuisine that she fell in love with and combined it with locally grown, fresh and seasonal ingredients, well-raised meat and sustainable seafood.

On my first visit to Jaffa LA for their “friends and family” preview, we took a seat on the patio where baskets of blankets were nearby to wrap ourselves in as it got chilly. We started with drinks, choosing from an eclectic international wine list, which includes Israeli wine, cocktails and mocktails. A glass of sparkling pink Bailly-Papierre NV Cremant de Bourgogne, France was the way to start. Read More +

Happy 2018! What a year 2017 was! It was a year of natural disasters ravaging California’s wine country and beyond, unexpected losses of some of our favorite winemakers and political discord. We are looking forward to 2018 and hope that it is a better year for all!

Despite many of the challenges of 2017, Please The Palate celebrated 6 years of being in business and we continue to keep moving at a never-ending pace.

Travel
While 2016 brought 140 days of travel, 2017 brought only 116 days of travel! Trips took me domestically to Santa Barbara, Pebble Peach, Pismo Beach, Sonoma, Napa, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington DC, Virginia, Chicago and Miami. On the international front, I traveled to Baja Mexico, Cabo San Lucas and France, as well as first time visits to Germany, Cuba and Portugal. It has been amazing to visit so many places and explore the cultures of new countries.

The Flats in Beverly Hills sits on a corner of Wilshire Blvd, one block east of La Cienega. Outside, construction of the Metro’s Purple Line has the street blocked off but inside, The Flats was bustling.

At the helm of The Flats is Michelin-starred Executive Chef Paul Shoemaker who has worked at Alan Ducasse, French Laundry, Water Grill, Providence, Firefly and Bastide, as well as his own restaurant Savory in Malibu. I first met Chef Shoemaker at the opening of Intro Art Gallery and Chef’s Table in North Hollywood where he offered a multi-sensory interactive dining experience. It is hard to forget the edible “dime bag” he served us that was made with Japanese rice paper filled with powdered foie gras, cocoa puffs, pine nuts and carbonated caramel. I was excited to try his newest endeavor, The Flats. Read More +